


Nunc Dimittis

by dianano



Series: The Ere Dorotea Expanded Fic Universe [2]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Multi, Pike Is A Dad (in more ways than one...), Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 20:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21062687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dianano/pseuds/dianano
Summary: Mia Colt has a side hustle of doing secretarial work for Captain Pike and Number One in order to buy a house with her new fiancee back on Earth. Unfortunately, that ends up getting her knee-deep in trouble that she'd rather she have nothing to do with.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Doing another multichap right after I posted a fresh one? I don't know why you're surprised. Anyways, Pike/One is endgame, Colt is a lesbian, Ellen Landry is alive and well, and I'm just here for a good time.
> 
> (CW- alcohol consumption)

Mia Colt had a side hustle. There were strict rules regarding what yeomen could and couldn’t do for their captains (“stress relief” was strictly forbidden, to the disappointment of sleazy old admirals everywhere), and what work they were prohibited from doing for them. The yeomen were paid by Starfleet, after all, and it wouldn’t do for them to perform personal work for captains on the Federation dime. 

It was a good gig, too. The aforementioned pay was nice, if not quite as much as the officers. They got respect, yelling power, and access to brassy events where they could drink and shoot the breeze with the catering staff and yeomen from all walks of life. The connection between a captain and yeoman itself was often rewarding. Mia’s second posting had been, to use yeoman slang, a “baby” captain at his very first posting. Their second week on the job, Mia had found him crying in the ready room, feeling so isolated and overwhelmed that it had led to a breakdown. Mia got him the afternoon off, and they spent it watching a holo and eating ice cream together. He was so grateful for her help in the early days that a year later, he put in a word to get her the Enterprise gig. Captains were only allowed to say positive things about their yeomen, not negative. It was one of the best parts of the job. Yeomen would be transferred without question if they reported an abuse of power. 

Captain Pike had never treated her with disrespect, though. Quite the opposite. She spent so much time walking two steps behind him and to the right that they developed a rather intimate parlance. And she let him get away with asking things of her that she wouldn’t tolerate of other captains- namely, she brought him his meals. Both of them regarded it as critical to keeping the ship functional. 

He’d always been so good to her. The whole command staff was. Number One remembered her birthday, Spock and Connely gave her first pick of offal flora and fauna from the greenhouses to spruce up her quarters, and the ever-changing rota of chief engineers knew that she was the key to the captain tolerating their antics. Mia Colt really loved the Enterprise.

She first realized for certain that she wanted to work on the Enterprise forever when she met Madeline, of course. It was where Maddie worked, in the depths of the ship, maintaining the Enterprise’s uniform laundry. (It wasn’t actually a laundry, she learned when they first met- Mia had gone to investigate how the Captain got a uniform with a yeoman’s stripe and Mia was suddenly a captain.) And of course, the captain noticed how Mia started spending more and more time down there and started “accidentally” replicating the wrong uniforms so that she would have to go down and get it fixed. What a wingman, Captain Pike. When she and Maddie got engaged two years later, he finally declared his duty done and held an engagement party for them- and wore the messed-up jacket, of course.

That was how her side hustle started, naturally. She was standing out on the balcony of his house, where he’d hosted the party, and looking at the stars with a glass of wine in-hand. Maddie was inside, entertaining the bridge crew by semi-drunkenly explaining how the laundry worked, and Mia had wandered off to pout about her circumstances.

“All good?” The captain had snuck up behind her, almost as well as Mia managed to do.

“I’m busy feeling sorry for myself, sir,” she said.

“Anything I can do to help?”

There wasn’t a great way to talk about this, so she just turned around and tried to explain the situation to him.

“Maddie and I are starting to look at moving back to Earth,” she said. “And you know how much I love the Enterprise, but she wants this job on the Starfleet Uniform Commission like she wants air.”

“Is that’s what’s wrong?” the Captain asked. “You guys really need to talk about this before starting to settle down.”

“No, no,” Mia corrected him. “If she gets it, we’re committed. I figure I can count on you for a strong recommendation-” (his smile back says it all) “And get a good job somewhere. Mostly we’re starting to look at housing.”

The captain’s smile instantly turned to a grimace.

“Exactly,” she said. “Plus being a yeoman means you don’t automatically qualify for spousal housing, _plus plus_ Maddie’s parents are probably gonna come live with us.”

“Well, crap,” the Captain says. “There’s always the civilian market?”

She and Pike really had developed their own language over all this time, because when she shot him an amused shrug (“really?!”), he laughed it off.

“Let me see what I can do,” he said, and so it began.

* * *

The deal they struck was this: Mia would spend about ten hours a week managing the personal finances and communications of Captain Pike and Number One up until she left the Enterprise. In return, they would combine that with Maddie’s housing allowance and then pay for the remainder as a joint wedding gift.

It was in that context that Mia woke up every morning to answer letters and invoices over her morning coffee on Observation Deck 5. Somewhere along the line she’d noticed her knack for business, which could serve her well back on Earth. Most of it was boring. Captain Pike’s finances mostly revolved around his family ranch and arranging care for his aging mothers, much like Mia was dealing with. Number One, for lack of anything else to do with her pay, invested in foreign stock exchanges. At first it had struck Mia as bizarre, but she quickly noticed the size of the Commander’s returns and started following the same stock that Number One did. (Thusly, Mia Colt learned the joys of insider trading under diplomatic immunity.)

In the same way, Captain Pike got letters from his mothers that were forwarded from his personal comm to his Starfleet one every morning, along with comms from all over (and plenty of job offers back in San Francisco. Somewhat selfishly, Mia wished he’d just take the damn desk job and she could stay his yeoman back on Earth.). Number One had a few pen pals, which Mia snooped on for personal entertainment. 

This went on for months, and she started to get into the swing of it, until that fateful morning on the Observation Deck. She’d switched things up and gotten a latte instead of a cappuccino this time, but she wasn’t enjoying it very much, and about to get up and get her normal cup when the communication popped into Pike’s personal comm on her padd.

“URGENT,” it said. “DISTRICT COURT OF CALIFORNIA ORDER. CONSENT FOR PATERNITY TEST REQUESTED.”

It was really unfortunate that Mia hadn’t enjoyed her coffee, because if she’d drunk it all she wouldn’t have spilled it all over her uniform in shock.

* * *

A quick uniform change later, Mia got into the turbolift. Her gut instinct was to leave it be, re-mark it as unopened, pretend she hadn’t seen it, and let the captain see it himself when he checked his comm after his shift. But that went against his personal moral code, and therefore it went against Mia’s. But she needed… she needed to tell someone.

And who should fate send to join her in the turbolift but Number One herself! 

If the Commander noticed Mia’s nervousness, she didn’t say anything. Woman of few words and all that. So instead, Mia decided to speak her language and simply… unlock the padd and pass it to her.

Number One read it.

Number One thought for a moment.

Number One passed the padd back to Mia.

* * *

“Captain Pike?” Number One’s voice was remarkably steady as she exited the turbolift, practically dragging Mia behind her with one arm. “A word, please.”

It was obvious that she meant business, and even Captain Pike knew to obey a pissed-off Number One. So he simply nodded and walked to the turbolift, and Number One dragged Mia back in.

It was silent all the way to his office. Pike didn’t even bother asking. It seemed that both he and Mia spoke the language of Number One, and knew not to disturb her before she was ready. And Mia knew too, that this was no longer her problem but Number One’s, and that was more than a little bit of relief.

Naturally, Number One was full of surprises and flipped the script as soon as Pike sat down by throwing Mia under the bus.

“Yeoman Colt has something to show you, sir,” she said stiffly.

“She does?” Pike wasn’t smiling, probably because Number One looked ready to committ murder and Mia looked like she’d just witnessed the crime.

“Yes sir,” Mia passed him the padd and wished that her voice wasn’t so shaky.

Pike took the padd, and it almost felt like another weight off her shoulders, but this time with the knowledge that the weight was now on him. The only expression she could pinpoint on his face was the way his mouth parted in a barely-perceptible gasp. He read through it quickly, then again slowly, then one more time before it really sets in.

For lack of anything better to do, Mia took note of the room, as if she’d never been there before. Then, the buzzing in the walls and the ticking of his antique clock. And the sounds of the turbolift and a blinking light in the corner that needed to be fixed. And then suddenly, her attention was back on the man himself, when he puts the padd down. She grabbed it back and clutched it to her chest.

“Well,” Pike said. “Fuck.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mia, Pike, and the gang meet Simeon.

A full week passed before Mia heard anything more. Pike took over his personal comms again, though Mia could still see the sent and received receipts- the Captain was in near-constant contact with a Californian lawyer and was apparently trying to get in touch with one in Algeria as well. Mia certainly felt on edge, especially because both the Captain and Number One had asked her not to share anything with Maddie, either. That didn’t sit well with Mia, though it was helped by them being put on opposite shifts, which absolutely reeked of Number One’s influence.

On day eight (or “plus eight” if one was being specific), Pike called them both back into his office and asked them to take a seat. Immediately, Mia clocked a few changes to his office- the photograph of the Captain and Reverend Dorotea at her wedding was gone. While the photograph had always been the butt of jokes among the crew (due to the staging, it appeared as if Captain Pike was the one marrying Reverend Dorotea and not Commander Landry), it seemed that Pike had finally taken that to heart and removed it. In its place was a more general photograph of him with his mothers on the very same porch that Mia had bemoaned the San Francisco real estate market to him on.

“I owe you two an explanation,” Captain Pike said. “You’re both very intelligent, I’m sure you’ve come to your own conclusions, but I wanted you to hear it from me personally.”

With a swipe of his finger, he sent a file to both of their padds. It was a case file and a birth certificate, both filed within the past month. 

“As you found out before me,” Pike said, possibly more apprehensive than Mia had ever seen him, “I have a son. His name is Simeon, he’s a few weeks old.”

Number One hardly looked at the file, but Mia scanned it eagerly. There was a blurry picture of an infant in the corner, and she stared at it for a good bit of time, just trying to see the resemblance. There it was, the “Christopher Richard Pike” listed under Parent 2, but the baby looked very little like her rather chiseled captain. It looked squinty and very infant-like. Oh well, perhaps Simeon would grow into his father’s good looks.

“I had a brief relationship with his mother, an archeologist based in eastern Algeria, around last year when the Enterprise was undergoing repairs,” he said. “Because of the distance between the Enterprise on its five-year mission and Earth, she was unable to contact me until after Simeon was born. We’re working out custody now.”

At that point, he looked up to survey Mia and Number One’s reactions. For her part, Mia gave him an encouraging smile. (One continued to stare, emotionless.)

“I’m glad, sir,” she said. “He’s very cute.”

“Doesn’t look much like me, does he?” Pike asked, his humor seeming to have returned with her encouragement. “Despite DNA tests to the contrary. No, he’s got his mother’s looks, at least for now.”

(Out of the corner of her eye, Mia noticed that Number One looked ready to clock Pike and was instead taking her anger out on the padd’s handle.)

“I’m going to continue to ask for your discretion in this matter,” he said, and they both nodded- Number One like she was still plotting his murder and Mia more understandingly. “Colt, you’re free to tell your wife now, but let’s not go spreading this. I won’t deny that Simeon is my son, but I don’t want gossip, especially while we’re still hammering out custody.”

They both nodded again, and Pike continued.

“When we dock at Starbase 26, a social worker is going to bring him out here for me to spend some supervised time with him and assess my parenting skills or lack therof.”

(Mia chuckled.)

“I’m sure you’ll do fine, sir.”

“Well, you’re both welcome to stay and watch me undergo the most stressful exam of my life, if you don’t have better things to do,” the Captain said.

* * *

They did not, as it turned out, have better things to do. Maddie was held up at the laundry, and so had told Mia to go have fun and not wait for her. This fun, as it turned out, was standing with Captain Pike, Number One, and Reverend Dorotea at the shuttleport of Starbase 26 and playing a guessing game of each person who walked in with a baby carrier.They were, as it turned out, extremely bad at that game. (At one point, it turned out that their top guess was instead carrying a large guinea pig.)

Captain Pike had just reached to check his watch when someone approached them from behind.

“Christopher Pike?”

They all whirled around to see a tall, white-haired woman setting down a baby carrier that was covered with a green blanket.

“Ms. Forrest?” the Captain asked, and the woman nodded in confirmation. “Thank you so much for making the trip out here, I really appreciate it.”

The social worker just nodded again. If it weren’t for the circumstances, Mia felt as if she and Number One could get along like a house on fire.

“Is this…” the Captain gestured at the covered carrier.

“This is Simeon,” she said. “He’s asleep right now, but he should wake up soon. You can take a look if you want..”

Captain Pike knelt down to the carrier. Mia’s instinct was to lean in, but both Number One and Reverend Dorotea pulled her away to give the Captain more space. They watched as the Captain delicately removed the blanket and let it pool on the legs of the infant, which he observed with almost spiritual devotion.

“Hi, Simeon,” he said almost silently, as he placed a finger in the baby’s hand and let it rest there. Mia could see him blink back tears.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, while Captain Pike gently stroked the infant’s hands and face as it slept. His kneeling shadow blocked out the light of the shuttlebay, and the rest of them surrounded him a few feet away. Nobody wanted to disturb something that sacred.

Eventually the Captain looked back up at the social worker and re-draped the blanket over the carrier. 

“Would you like to take this to the Enterprise?”

* * *

Captain Pike had been given permission to carry Simeon from the shuttleport to his ready room, where Mia had already arranged for snacks and drinks to be waiting for the group (as if that was going to shift the social worker’s judgement). As they walked. Mia eavesdropped on the Captain’s conversation with her as she outlined the current custody arrangement.

“As of right now, you are not allowed to refer to yourself as his father to him directly,” Mia heard her say.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter to him,” the Captain replied. “He’s barely a month old.”

“It matters to his mother,” the social worker replied crisply. “If it matters to you too, I suggest you bring it up with your lawyers.”

To this, the Captain just sighed and changed the subject.

In the ready room he shed his jacket, leaving him in a short-sleeved black shirt while he held Simeon for the first time. Reverend Dorotea, who had the most experience with infants of any of them, had picked the baby up and immediately woken him up, but instead of panicking the Captain simply took Simeon into his arms and settled on the couch. There, Mia kept him supplied with fruit, cheese, and crackers, which he delicately ate with one hand while rocking the now-sleeping infant in the other.

As Mia had predicted earlier, Number One and Ms. Forrest were currently in the process of getting along like a house on fire. Both were passionately debating some sort of obscure law or policy, the former with her back to the Captain and Simeon, the latter keeping an ever-present eye on them. Reverend Dorotea flitted around the room, occasionally taking pictures of Captain Pike with Simeon when he wasn’t looking. The pastor seemed to be quite optimistic that Pike would be able to have a strong relationship with his son, and Mia respected that buoyancy. At one point, Pike motioned her over and whispered in her ear, to which she nodded.

Two hours later, the visit was up, which Ms. Forrest declared promptly and stood up. Captain Pike rose almost drowsily, supporting Simeon with both hands, and moved to place him back in his carrier before stopping..

“Can I give him something, before you go?” He asked her.

“Depends, but probably,” she replied.

The Captain walked over to the shelf where his photographs stood and removed a stuffed horse. It hadn’t been there before, but judging from the wear and tear it had probably come from the Captain’s personal effects- his moms might have sent it over. He put Simeon back in the carrier and tucked the horse in next to him. Number One seemed unimpressed, but Mia and Reverend Dorotea sniffled a little. Mia was standing next to Pike, while Dorotea was next to Ms. Forrest. The Captain gave Dorotea a little nod as he bent over, and Dorotea turned to Ms. Forrest… almost as if they had planned it.

“Thanks so much for coming,” Reverend Dorotea said exuberantly and shook Ms. Forrest’s hand, to which the social worker could only shake back. And in that split second, Mia caught something that definitely made her cry later: Captain Pike leaned over and whispered to Simeon…

“Papa loves you, my dear.”

* * *

Number One showed Ms. Forrest out, carrying Simeon with her. Pike, Mia, and Dorotea all stayed in the ready room, as the Captain seemed to visibly deflate as his son left.

“You’ll see him again soon, sir,” Mia said, trying to raise the spirits of the room.

“Eventually,” he replied glumly. “I have a call with my lawyers tonight, hopefully I’ll be able to get developmental updates from Katharine so that I don’t miss too much.”

“That’s the really unfortunate part about the five-year mission,” Dorotea responded. “Think you could take leave? It would get you back to Earth within a day.”

“I have no claim to him until this fucking agreement is finalized,” the Captain snapped back. It might have been the first time Mia had heard him curse. “Apologies, Ere.” (Reverend Dorotea laughed.) “I don’t hold anything against Katharine, but the amount of time, energy, and money this is taking really bothers me.”

“Agreed,” Reverend Dorotea said. “But overall, it went well.”

“It went really well,” he agreed.


End file.
